Degrees of Sleeplessness
by cupofdaydream
Summary: "To share in the night's quiet loneliness, a companion for the vast hours of sleeplessness, is, perhaps, all they've ever wanted." Two teachers at the local high school, Eren and Mikasa, in the midst of work and home-life, find themselves indubitably and inescapably drawn to one another. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1

**DEGREES OF SLEEPLESSNESS**

**Warnings: Swearing by characters and throughout narration, eventual mature content **

**A/N: What better way to ring in the New Year than by trying something new? I've started up this longer, multi-chapter story in hopes of improving upon my plot and development skills. Thanks for giving it a read! **

**Modern AU**

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><p><strong>1. SECOND FIRST IMPRESSIONS—AND THEN A THIRD<strong>

The sleepless hours of last night weigh heavy beneath Mikasa Ackerman's eyes, flowers of purple and blue most unkind bruising the delicate skin. Yawning, she dabs concealer on with the pad of her finger—as if it'll make a difference.

She considers the reflection before her less than satisfactory—the slight slouch of a 4 AM headache in her posture no matter how much she straightens her back, eyes as dead as the frogs her honors biology class will be dissecting in a few months time, blouse wrinkled even though she ironed it just last night. Cautiously, she reaches for her makeup bag, drawing in her liner much thicker in attempt to open up her eyes, and painting her lips with the only tube of lipstick she has, a bright cherry red; in the mirror, she blinks at herself a few times, and forces a smile at the woman in the looking glass with the uneven eyeliner and messy lips. She looks like one of her students. With a cringe and a shudder, she wipes away her additions, returning as best she can to her minimalist self.

After feeding the cat and rushing out the door, grabbing some toast and her water bottle on the way out, she makes sure to cast a dirty look at the door of the new next door neighbor, who'd had the courtesy of blasting their ungodly music late into the early hours of the morning, gifting her with a nagging headache in the silence afterwards. Asshole. Didn't they know it was a school night? When she spots their beat-up gray Passat in a shitty parking job next to her station wagon, she resists the urge to give it a good kick.

**. . . . .**

This Monday was destined to go poorly. Should she have expected anything else? She falls to the ground as she rounds the corner, a rather tall and fast moving figure careening into her, sending her students' lab reports and, somehow, her shoe, scattered across the hall.

"Fuck. Shit—I mean—dammit. Are you all right?"

When Mikasa opens her eyes, she stares face to face with a pair of tattered cognac loafers, and, eyes rising higher and higher, corduroys, a wrinkled button up tucked under an equally wrinkled sweater, and a shock of turquoise eyes when she reaches his face, brown hair disheveled to match. Had they met under different circumstances, had he not knocked her to the ground, and had she not gotten only three hours of sleep that night, she might have found his reckless behavior, his foul mouth, pardonable, found the way his brows knit together in concern endearing, and his overall physique rather attractive. But, as she lays on the floor, papers strewn about, and body so fatigued she could fall asleep right here in the middle of the hallway, all she can regard his wide-eyed expression with is abject chagrin.

He reaches out a hand to help her up, which she makes a show of ignoring, hating him all the more when she's forced to crawl on hands and knees to collect her papers. "Right," he says, getting down beside her, "Here, let me help you with that."

Mikasa refuses to look at him, snatching the papers from his hands up as quickly as she can, wiping off her skirt, and slipping her shoe back on when she's gathered everything, standing. Her temper flares all the more when he stands, too, revealing the vast height difference between them. The boy grins stupidly, hand reaching up to scratch the back of his neck: "Have we got everything?"

She doesn't answer.

"Didn't bite your tongue on the way down, did you?"

"Don't run in the hallways," she deadpans.

"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. You know how it is: Monday mornings, running late for class—"

"I'll write you up."

"Haha. _Right_," he says with that stupid grin again, reaching to his back pocket and flashing his teacher's lanyard. And the first period bell rings.

She doesn't give him the satisfaction of comparing picture to face. Instead, Mikasa looks him straight in the eyes, voice and expression level and composed. "I'm late," she says. And turning on a heel, she leaves.

**. . . . .**

First period goes by slowly as usual, and she nearly falls asleep during her own lecture, which makes it much more difficult to convince her honors bio kids that the reverse processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration are actually incredibly fascinating and essential systems of plant and animal life, quintessentially embodying the tenants of the first law of thermodynamics. She meets more blank stares and open mouths than expressions of comprehension and note scribbling.

"Basically, photosynthesis converts the energy into employable energy that plants and animals can then access through cellular respiration," Mikasa says after stifling a closed mouthed yawn. She gestures to the hand raised in the back.

"So, like, every time we eat lettuce we're, like, basically eating the sun?"

It's at that moment her mind just goes absolutely blank, words in one ear, and jumbled around in the middle before going straight out the other. She squints at the windows in the back for longer than she should, mind for some reason fixated on why lettuce was the plant of choice. Thank you, new neighbor.

She finally settles on an answer: "Yes."

When the end of the period bell sounds, she rushes out of the room faster than most of her students, striding to the teacher's lounge on the other side of the floor for the coffee she for some reason skipped this morning. Taken black, it carries her through second, and a second cup carries her through third.

Back in the teacher's lounge at the start of fourth, she collapses upon the couch, resolved that it is _completely_ acceptable and appropriate to take a quick nap right here until her sixth period class. Setting her head down on a pillow of notes, Mikasa closes her eyes…

It has to be a second—maybe a minute at most—later when she wakes to a deep and slow, monotone voice heavy with the perpetual disdain that she knows all too well.

"Christ, can someone please wake up Ackerman?"

She scrambles to her feet, adjusting her clothes and standing at attention. "Sorry," she mumbles, glancing sheepishly at Dean Levi.

His glare settles on her for an uncomfortable moment before expanding to the rest of the teachers in the room. "As I was saying," he continues, "Eren Yeager will be joining our faculty in the English Department as Marco Bodt's replacement. That will be all," he gestures to the man standing behind him before leaving. Bright turquoise eyes, an incredibly idiotic grin, cognac loafers, and disheveled everything; it's the same guy who knocked her to the floor that morning. _That guy_.

The others give waves and hellos of acknowledgment, a few of the bolder ones going forward to strike up a conversation. Mikasa slumps back on the couch, closing her eyes again and begging for sleep to take her.

"So—if you don't mind me asking—what happened to this Marco guy? Did he die, or something?"

"Yeah, yeah he did, you insensitive asshole," a voice that she's pretty sure belongs to Jean replies.

"Oh, shit, I am—_wow_. I am so sorry, I would never have said that if—"

The other person laughs. Yup. Definitely Jean. "Relax, new guy, I was just pulling your leg. He got a better offer up over in Sina. He's as good as dead to me though. Leaving me behind and all."

Someone taps her on the shoulder. Mikasa opens an eye.

"You look like you could use one," Armin says, offering up a steaming cup of coffee.

She receives it with a smile and a thank you. Mikasa raises her drink. "Cup number three."

He smiles sympathetically back. "I've gotta run. I'm on library duty."

She thanks him again, and Armin leaves, history textbooks under arm, but not before fist bumping the new guy. Odd.

Because sleep seems intent on evading her, she settles instead on grading papers, taking sips of searing coffee in between sentences, when the new guy takes a seat across from her.

"Sorry again about this morning. I don't think I had the chance to properly introduce myself," he says, offering out his hand, "Eren Yeager."

His eyes, bright and fiery, demand her gaze, and mesmerized, she accepts his hand.

"Mikasa Ackerman," she replies.

They sit in silence, and she wishes that he'd either go away or say something, _anything_, instead of just sitting here and staring. He didn't seem to have any problem running his mouth this morning. She shifts in her seat, tapping her pen and biting her lip; his eyes aren't directly on her, but she can still _feel_ him looking at her, and she wishes she had the courage to return his fixed stare.

"So," she begins, half sighing, "you've already met Armin?"

Eren jumps to life, apparently elated to find that she's forgiven him enough to speak to him. "Old friends, actually. We went to the same high school."

Mikasa nods. "He's a sweetheart," she says, her cup of coffee still hot beneath her fingers.

"Yeah, he's a good guy," he waves away her apology when she gives a prolonged yawn. "Long night last night?"

"Obnoxious, nocturnal new neighbors."

"Ah. I know that story all too well," and he grins that grin of his, and this time it doesn't infuriate her, instead sending a shiver down her spine—not entirely unpleasant—and heat to her cheeks. "If there's anything I've learned from my experiences with terrible neighbors, it's that if they give you hell, you give 'em hell right back."

In retrospect, what he says isn't all that awe-inspiring, hasn't provided her with some momentous revelation—it isn't even remotely clever. Nonetheless, Mikasa finds herself smiling.

**. . . . .**

The neighbors give her hell all week. They steal her parking spot—because apparently there's just something horribly dissatisfying about their own—when they can, and boxing her in when they can't, come home late at night blasting the car radio, slam their door on their way in, and blare music only 'til two in the morning if they decide to hit the sack early. She bangs on the connecting wall Wednesday night as she grades papers, and the music stops for a moment. And then it returns a moment later, notably quite a few decibels louder.

"The noise doesn't bother you?" she asks the old woman who lives on the other side one day as they both climb the stairs.

"Huh?" the woman holds up a finger, signaling for her to wait as she turns on her hearing aids. "Did you say something?" she asks. Oh.

Mikasa smiles, and shakes her head.

"Another rough night?" Eren says as he appears beside her at the coffee machine, hair tousled and slightly out of breath. Running late seemed to be his perpetual state; oftentimes, she spots him flying down the hallways with seconds to spare. Not a morning person, he's told her.

She nods her head: "At least I'll get to sleep in tomorrow."

He hands her a napkin when she spills a bit of creamer on the counter. "I'm gonna grab a drink later on tonight with some of the guys if you'd like to join us," he says rather suddenly.

More than a small part of her wants to say yes. It's only been a few days, a few hours in the break room, a few hurried, short conversations in the hall, but she's gathered a good amount. He's passionate. Passionate about teaching, passionate about the kids he's only just recently met, he exudes passion in speech, speaking with such vigor in every conversation she's overheard, hands always moving to further emphasize what he's saying, he's quick to defend, quick to argue with any point he finds as a challenge to his ideology. Ironically, he lacks eloquence, but he more than compensates in fiery ardor. She's gathered quite a good amount of information in a few short days. And more than a small part of her craves to learn more.

"I shouldn't," she replies, averting her eyes from his. "I think I'm going to try to get a few hours of sleep in before the neighbor gets home."

The smile he gives, though there's no discernible difference from the others, feels rather forced. "I understand," he says.

**. . . . .**

Somewhere between two and four in the morning, the throbbing of her headache coinciding with the beat of the music, the idea hits her. Stroking Shina, the ball of gray fur sleeping on her stomach, Mikasa smiles to herself, that same smile playing on her lips when the music stops she finally drifts off to sleep.

The next morning, she jumps out of bed fifteen minutes before her alarm goes off, brushing her teeth and washing her face while she hums to a familiar tune.

Cat in her arms, the two of them loom over the litter box, paper bag and lighter in her back pocket.

"Let's give 'em hell," Mikasa purrs, scratching Shina's head. Six days is, after all, much too long to go without properly welcoming a new face to the neighborhood.

**. . . . .**

She pounds furiously at the door, relenting only when she hears approaching footsteps from the other side; quickly, she lights the bag and returns to her apartment.

The door creaks open, and there's a series of expletives, followed by the stomping of a foot upon concrete, followed by more expletives, and then with angry pounding on her front door.

"A FIERY BAG OF SHIT," a man's voice roars, "_REAL_ FUCKING MATURE."

Poised, the faintest of smirks resting on her lips, she crosses the room, throwing open the door to receive whoever lies on the other side.

"_Mikasa_?"

Shit.

Hair tousled this way and that, drawstring pants ripped at the knees, and missing one sock, she didn't think it was possible to appear more unkempt than he already usually looked. He stares dumbly at her, mouth gaping. She suddenly regrets not putting on a bra before all this, pulling her sweater over to cover herself. And then, realizing that her mouth is open, too, composes the rest of herself before speaking.

"Good morning, Eren."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: It was actually during the writing of this chapter that I came up with the title. I found it very fitting that the majority of this was written when I couldn't fall asleep at night.**

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><p><strong>2.<strong> **I THOUGHT I WAS **_**TEACHING**_** HIGH SCHOOL, NOT RELIVING IT**

He's embarrassed more than anything else. Had he known it was her banging on the adjacent wall, he definitely would have been less of an ass, wouldn't have thought his very intentional parking jobs to be quite so hilarious, wouldn't have countered the intrusive hum of her early morning routine with the over the top music late at night. His face still burns red when he thinks about that morning: standing, still groggy, a fool in her doorway, while she stared at him wide-eyed, too, that certain _look_ seeping into her eyes when she finally got over the initial shock. She'd looked sorta pretty standing there. He'd noticed it many times before at school, but damn, she wore the I-just-rolled-out-of-bed look well. Yup. Pretty pretty looking. But mostly pretty angry looking.

They'd stood in silence, and he couldn't bear to meet her gaze—he hadn't felt that guilty and childlike in the longest of times. And when she opened her mouth to speak, the tone of her voice wasn't harsh or fiery, but utterly calm and unwavering: "Park in your own parking spot without being an ass, and don't blast your music past ten," she had said.

Eren had resisted the urge to curse, because he knew his cheeks were burning. The words came out slow. "Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. It won't happen again."

She inclined her chin, somehow looking at him down her nose despite being quite a few inches shorter than him. "I'm sorry about the poop," she said, and then she closed the door.

Slinking back to his apartment, he invested in a good pair of headphones later that day.

At school, he sees her around the usual amount, locking eyes with her in the break room before quickly tearing his sight away, spotting her in the hallways, unsure of whether or not to greet her. He alters his routes from class to class, sometimes in hopes of running into her, sometimes to avoid her at all costs.

And then on Wednesday, during the passing period between sixth and seventh, after his fifth cup of coffee—it had been a rough morning—so maybe it's the caffeine more than anything else, he's hit with an overwhelming surge of courage and confidence. He could dive into battle right now if he had to, or, at the very least, engage in the circumstantial equivalent.

Eren flies down the hallway, dodging the students that congest the floor as he makes his way to the science wing. Up ahead, he spots her: the back of her head, dark, chin length hair bouncing lightly with each step, posture perfect and upright, steps careful and precise. And before he can stop himself, he shouts across the hallway: "Mikasa!"

She stops and turns to face him, expression slightly alarmed, and so do a few other students, who look about frantically for this "Mikasa". Her eyes, dark and shining, turn to his. "Yes, Mr. Yeager?"

And just like that, his mind goes blank. He can't look away from her ebony eyes, heart pounding and cheeks burning, it's like he's back in high school—hell, he _is _in high school

A mess of stuttering ensues, rambling nothingness and mumbled gibberish. "I'll, uh, see you later," he stammers before running off.

Fuck. Nice one, Yeager.

He cringes his way through his seventh period class, shuddering every time the moment enters his mind, giving his regular freshman English class the option to either prepare for tomorrow's discussion or to catch up on reading, because he really can't deal with anything else right now, deciding that grading papers would be the best way to get his mind off the series of unfortunate incidents plaguing his life right now.

The essays are satisfactory—nothing unexpected from a regular English class in the beginning of the year—though there's one girl whose writing reflects that she should _definitely_ have taken the honors course, and another surprising abnormality from Koen.

The paper is riddled with run-ons and fragments, incorrect homonyms, good ideas and points that are just not quite developed enough. Eren looks up from his desk. There's a decent amount of chatter flying about the room, most of his kids working diligently, one or two scribbling away at what looks like bio, the usual four in the back corner snickering at something definitely not English related, and Koen sits in silence, lost in the world outside the window, lined paper on his desk blank save for a few doodles.

"Hey guys," Eren calls out, "make sure to stay productive. Feel free to talk to a peer to toss around ideas for tomorrow's discussion or test your comprehension of the text."

Koen remains lost and thought, and not wanting to single him out in front of the entire class, Eren decides to drop it.

**. . . . .**

He goes the rest of the period not thinking about how he made a fool out of himself in front of her once again, until the end of the period bell sounds, and the memory, triggered somehow by the shrillness of the ring, hits him hard. Eren audibly groans, face contorting as if he tasted something foul-because he basically just did-fingers flying up to grasp the bridge of his nose.

"You all right, Mr. Yeager?" It's Koen. He peers at him, concern knitting his brow together while the other students push and shove their way out of the door.

Eren forces a grin. "I'm fine. It's just one of those days, you know?"

Koen nods his head, and turns to walk away, but not before Eren calls him back.

"Hey, Koen, about your essay—make sure you do some editing in addition to using a word processor."

"Yeah, sorry, I'm bad at this stuff."

"Why don't you stop by the English Department during your lunch tomorrow. We can look it over together," Eren says. He looks him in the eye. "You're a smart kid, Koen," he tells him. And he means it. He really does.

Koen purses his lips, and, with a quick nod of the head, leaves.

**. . . . .**

"Koen Klaus," Eren sits next to Armin during lunch the next day, careful to avoid all eye contact with Mikasa, "he's one of your students, right? Does he have trouble in your class?"

Armin chews his food thoughtfully before speaking: "He really seems to struggle with focusing and work completion. But he's an intelligent kid—creative, too. For the diorama project, his was by far the best I've ever seen. Absolutely beautiful. You'll have to come stop by my room to take a look—"

"Ha," Jean interrupts, leaning over and emphasizing each word with the point of his fork, 'Does he _have_ trouble?' More like, 'does he _give_ me trouble?'—that kid's really something."

Eren flicks his gaze over to Jean; he folds his arms and sets his jaw. "He's a good kid. He's trying."

"See, that's just the problem. He _doesn't_. Yeah, he's a smart kid, I'll give him that, but he doesn't turn in homework, doesn't pay attention in class, hell, I get his quizzes back, and half of it's blank. He's not even making an effort. Of course he's 'struggling.'"

Jean says it so matter-of-factly, nose in the air as he sips from his drink. Eren leans in closer across the table, ignoring Armin's quiet plea to change the subject. An uncomfortable tension grows in his chest and neck. And it's as if he's back in that conference room all those years ago with his third grade teacher and mother, except this time, instead of shame, he's brimming with disgust.

"He just needs some extra guidance. Some help to keep him on track."

"I shouldn't have to put on a horse and pony show to keep my students engaged," Jean says with the wave of his hand, rising to throw away his trash. Eren stands to level with him, shaking the table as he does.

"But we _should_ have the decency to alter our teaching strategies to help out our kids—it's our goddamn responsibility!"

"Look, Yeager, you're new to this whole teaching thing. It's okay. You don't know yet."

Somehow, Eren's finds his pointer finger jabbing itself to Jean's chest, and a certain shadow crosses Jean's face, his figure seeming to stretch taller over Eren's head. "No, _you_ look," Eren hisses. "I _know_ the signs. You're too ignorant to see it, but I can recognize it for what it is—"

"This isn't the place," a voice from the table behind them interjects.

Eren turns. Sandwich half finished, and red pen and papers out, Mikasa sits alone, seemingly engrossed in her work as if she doesn't notice a thing. If he didn't know the sound of her voice, he would've thought someone else had spoken. "What?"

"I said," she lifts her chin up to look at him, voice stern, but face calm, "this isn't the place to argue and talk about an individual student in this manner. It's actually rather inappropriate of you."

He's brought back to the room, becoming acutely aware of the various pairs of eyes on him and Jean, noticing how forks and spoons stay frozen in air, the lack of conversation. Eren dips his chin and drops his gaze, unable to meet her eyes.

"I know you mean well," she continues, "but, Eren, I'd advise you to express your concerns to Ms. Petra Ral, the social worker in Student Services, if you want to be of any help." With that, she returns to her work.

Jean smirks, beginning to walk away. "See ya, Yeager."

"Jean," Mikasa calls out again without looking up. "Don't be an ass."

Someone taps on Eren's shoulder. It's Armin.

"She's right," he mouths, not unkindly.

Face burning once again, Eren takes a seat, and returns to picking at the food in front of him.

**. . . . .**

Eren lies awake in bed, watching the ceiling fan spin round, and round, and round. No music fills his apartment tonight, his headphones rest at the other side of his bed, his father's specter absent. Tonight is plagued by different ghosts.

He remembers second and third grade well—angry tears dotting the pages of a book as he struggled to reason why everything made sense to the other kids, but not him, the frustration of having all of these stories swimming in his head and lacking the means to share them. Eren stretches out, his foot grazing something; he reaches down and grabs a book, the cover bent and torn in places. A smile twitches at the corner of his lips. He remembers hating reading.

And he tries not to think of the words that fell from Jean's mouth, poison, echoes, tries not to think of Koen, can't bear that he can still see his own reflection in the window the boy looked out of, can't bear his own self-centeredness.

He tries not to think of her. He tries not to think of how she's woken his insecurity from its slumber, a dormant monster that lay locked deep within him for years, though he'd thought he conquered it, liberated himself, banished it from his body entirely. This stuttering and stammering, this constant foolishness in her presence, ears burning red and heart racing, relentless—a part of him resents her for it, and the other yearns desperately for her approval.

With a frustrated groan, Eren passes a hand over the wall that separates his apartment from hers, wondering if she knows just how often she's crossed his mind these past weeks, made him cringe at his own vices, his cheeks flushed with juvenile bashfulness. Her voice, always so level and controlled in the way she's regarded him since they discovered the close proximity of their living arrangements, and her face, her eyes, divulging not the slightest hint of emotion—it's only natural that he should want to return to those small smiles, those small little waves of her hand across the hall.

Rolling over, he checks the clock, jumping to his feet when he sees that it's only eleven. He doesn't think much of it, doesn't consider the complexities, or possible outcomes, doesn't even really know what he wants to say, but whatever he's about to do, he _needs_ to do it. He feels it. And that is reason enough.

Barefoot, he knocks vigorously on her door. "I'm sorry," he blurts out as soon as she stands before him.

"For knocking so late at night?"

He takes in her slightly disheveled appearance, the way she leans on the door for support. "Shit. Yeah, I-I'm sorry about that too," Eren says running his fingers through his hair. "But I'm sorry about today at lunch, and all last week with the noise and the parking, and I know you're still mad at me, and that's okay, I just want you to know that I really am sorry," he takes a breath, and silently thanks the darkness for obscuring the redness of his face.

And then she laughs. It's brief. He thinks, for a moment, that he imagined it, but then her hand flies to her mouth as if she's spilled a secret that wasn't meant to be spilled. And he silently curses the darkness for obscuring the pink blossoms that bloom on her cheeks.

"I'm not angry," she says.

"You're not?"

"I mean, I _was_. I was angry Saturday, and a little bit Sunday. But not after that, and not today—just a little annoyed—and not right now," she yawns.

"Then how come—why did you? In school..." He tries to refer to every broken glance, the cold reservation in her greetings.

"That was," she averts her eyes, looking at her feet, "that wasn't your fault."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

The light in the corridor flickers, and an autumn breeze sends the both of them shivering, perhaps reminding them that the night only grows later and later.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow then," Eren says.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she repeats.

He turns to go, and she begins to close the door, but before it shuts all the way, he calls out one last time, "Mikasa?"

"Yes?"

"Goodnight."

Long after she closes the door, long after Eren returns to bed, long after one in the morning hits, and he still lies awake, the ceiling fan spinning round, and round, and round, he still recalls that the small smile on her lips as she closed the door at last, more than certain, that it was no trick of the light.

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><p><strong>AN: My intention wasn't to make Jean into some sort of heartless villain—that wasn't the case at all, and I certainly do not think of his character in that manner in the slightest. Rather, I wanted to portray one of the many challenges that children with learning disabilities or conditions that interfere with their education face. From my own experience, sometimes otherwise wonderful educators can misinterpret an individual's circumstances. **

**I've posted a few links to some resources on my profile. **


	3. Chapter 3

**3. THERE WAS NO 'MAKING FRIENDS 101' IN COLLEGE **

**A/N: The track season has started up for me, which means much less time to write. Thanks for being patient. **

**Also, to those of you who keep up with **_**With You, I am Home**_**, as I'm expending most of my creative energy on this project, any updates will most likely be from requests, so if you have any, feel free to drop me a PM!**

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><p><strong>3. THERE WAS NO 'MAKING FRIENDS 101' IN COLLEGE<strong>

She can never decide if the drive to the cemetery is too long or too short. It's never long enough for her to fully gather her thoughts, always long enough for her to begin to start hating the flowers that she was sure she liked when she bought them, never short enough for her wandering mind, always venturing into the dark crevices and abandoned corridors better left unvisited, unexplored. Tucked away beneath her parents bed, waiting for them to wonder where she was and come and find her, and then a rattling crack. Like a firework but worse. Short and puncturing, left a ringing in the air. And then screaming downstairs, a sound she'd never heard before but still recognized as belonging to her mother. Different, unfamiliar voices, deep and frantic. That loud sound again, once, and then a second time, and then twice more. And then silence.

Her grip tightens and loosens on the steering wheel. Mikasa forces herself to inhale for one second, two seconds, three, four, and exhale for one second, two seconds, three, four, five. Gradually, gradually, she returns herself to the present, locking the past back up as soon as she pulls through the cemetery gates.

Autumn makes its presence known in the bite on the wind, nipping at her ears and neck, and the sunsets in the trees, radiant fires that burn to fall. At the site, she clears away the weeds and leaves that have gathered over the past month, before she puts the flowers between the two markers, and lights a stick of incense just like how her mother used to at the small alter they kept at home, and though she's never really been one for prayer, she bows her head and puts her palms together in solidarity.

Sometimes, during visits like these, she has specific thoughts she purposefully recalls-her mother singing in the garden, her father teacher her to tie her shoes, the three of them walking hand in hand down the sidewalk, her parents swinging her by the arms-in those visits she comes to remember, comes in hopes of closing the distance she feels between herself and the man and woman who were her parents over ten years ago. Because sometimes it feels like she stands at the graves of two complete and utter strangers. Today is one of those days.

They wouldn't recognize her if they saw her today. The woman she is now bears no resemblance to their ten-year-old daughter. She's not their chattering little girl, not her father's ray of sunshine, not her mother's moonbeam child: not inquisitive, not warmhearted, not dauntless like she once was. She misplaced all tenderness beneath her parent's bed that summer's day—lost it all in one gunshot and then four more. She is too cold, and too rigid, too withdrawn and rough to the touch. She is something she herself isn't quite sure how to love.

The drive back home is never short enough. She turns up the radio, grabs something to eat, and drives a little faster than she should if she can. Her fingers curl tight around the steering wheel, then they slacken, and then they clench. She breathes in, breathes out, and counts the seconds, tells herself that she's not hurting, and pretends it's not a lie.

**. . . . .**

Coming home is supposed to solve everything. Coming home, where she's miles away from her mother and father's headstones, miles away from her past—its only presence in the single photograph of the three of them at her bedside, the rest of their pictures stored away beneath her bed—she should feel at ease. But her visit earlier today still clings to her, settles in the corners of her mind and festers.

She's lonely. She's ashamed of how long it took for her to give this emptiness a name. For it was only after she finished grading and lesson plans that she realized that now she not only has nothing to do, but no one to do anything with, no one she could even realistically call up and talk to.

Mikasa frowns to herself. How is it that after two years of teaching at this school, she's managed to remain without a single friend? Yet, upon further introspection, two years isn't the longest she's ever gone.

She'd kept to herself in high school and college, the pattern continuing at work, the single single work relationship she has remotely close to a friendship with Armin Arlert severely underdeveloped thanks to her self-perpetuated isolation. She's never even had a conversation with him that didn't involve school.

She has her fair share of acquaintances—the handful of facebook friends from high school and college, other teachers she occasionally chats with in the break room or at lunch—but, surely, she can't be blamed for wanting more? A sense of emotional intimacy and comfort, a companionable presence—the simple security of solitude no longer suffices. She longs for more.

And yet, what use is longing after stars you have no means of reaching? She's never ventured into this realm before, lacking all expectation, all standard, twenty-five and only growing older, every rejected opportunity, every wasted chance—all the signs indicate that her time to learn has come and past.

There's a mewl at her feet, and Mikasa scoops Shiga into her arms, holding her tight to her chest, and scratching behind her ears affectionately. Then again, she's made it this far. This moment of weakness, this confusion of loneliness for being alone—both inconsequential to the span of twenty-five years she's already spent. She may have never learned camaraderie, but she's mastered the art of independence and solitude—she had to. She can and will endure.

Then, of course, comes a knock on the door, and though deceptively polite, threatens her newly affirmed vow of independence. She has half a mind to ignore the intrusion, but then the knock comes again, rhythm and intensity just as civil as the first.

And so, with a sigh, Mikasa rises to her feet, and throws open the door.

"Hey, neighbor," Eren stands before her, "d'you have an egg?"

"An _egg_?"

"For breakfast."

"It's three in the afternoon."

"I just got out of bed," he says, a twinge of guilt in his voice.

She ends up giving him an egg—and another for good luck—hand crossing the threshold between her apartment and the outdoors.

"You sure you don't want to join me?" Eren asks, "I make a mean omelet."

Mikasa shakes her head. "I just had a late lunch," she lies.

"That's all right. And thanks," he says, flashing flashing both eggs in his hand as he returns to his apartment, "I owe you two."

Mikasa shuts the door behind him, and she tries her best to dislike him, to scorn his attempt to break her resolve, but she cannot help but feel that perhaps _she's_ the one who's done something wrong. And with a knock on the door, and two eggs from her fridge, her certainty in her content unravels once again.

**. . . . .**

At school, constantly surrounded by a mass of students, constantly answering questions and lecturing, it's always much easier to forget that there's something missing. She has the utmost fondness for her kids—her regular and honors biology kids, her regular and AP environmental studies students—all of her classes carry a distinct personality to them: first period corpse-like in their responsiveness, trying so hard to keep their eyes open and their heads off their desks, second slightly more awake, quiet, diligent workers, and third period her most enthusiastic class—though not her highest scoring. The period after lunch is rowdy, but picks up on the material quickly, while the last period of the day is always unfocused, yet high achieving.

"But I don't get it," one of her students says during her third class of the day; she's giving a lecture on the material they read over the weekend on evolution, "what's the difference between two symbiotic species, and two species that just inhabit the same general area?"

"Well in general," Mikasa explains, "symbiotic relationships involve some level of coevolution in the species' features or behaviors. They're not just neighbors, but partners."

For some reason, she frowns at her own words—they leave an odd taste in her mouth. And the odd taste persists all the way until lunch, and she immediately dives into her food to wash it out, taking no heed to her surroundings.

And so when he takes the seat in front of her at lunch, she's ill prepared to hide her surprise. Mikasa stares relentlessly at the rice on her plate, frozen as she wracks her mind for an explanation for this forwardness and change of routine. Sneaking a glance, she's bewildered to find him unpacking his lunch as if nothing is out of the ordinary. Her eyes dart from side to side, scanning to rest of the lunch room for abnormalities in setting. She must've sat down at the wrong table. What other explanation could there possibly be?

"Hey," Eren grins at her, "thanks again for those eggs yesterday."

Mikasa only looks down at her hands. "What are you doing here?" she asks.

Realization enters his face in the sinking of his chin to his chest, and the smile fading from his lips. "Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. Here I'll just—" he trails off, standing, and gather up his lunch.

"Wait!" she exclaims just a little too loud; her palms begin to sweat at the sight of quite a few heads turning towards them. "I didn't mean it like that," she lowers her voice. "I just was curious."

"So you don't mind if I sit here?"

She shakes her head. "I don't."

Eren places his things back on the table, and slowly sits back down, eyes trained on her just in case she decides she objects. "I always see you sitting alone," he says, "and I thought I'd join you."

An obstinate grain of rice sticks to the side of her bowl, refusing to be picked up by her spoon. The staff lunch room, though not unusual in the slightest, feels softer, their conversation, their silence, more exposed. Vulnerable. That single grain of rice finally relents to the efforts of her spoon. She speaks, so soft, even she can barely hear herself: "Thank you," she says.

Eren smiles back at her. And Mikasa finds that she is strangely comforted to have this ridiculous, lopsided grin sitting in the seat across from her.

**. . . . .**

Eren joins her for lunch everyday this week, and Armin joins too on the days he's not meeting with a student. They're not like the other tables. They're nothing like Ymir, and Christa, and Connie, and Sasha's table—loquacious and raucous—their laughter and conversations overflowing from their terrible and spilling to the rest of the room, at ease and relaxed. At their table, the three of them spend their time in forced discussion and silences that don't quite sit right, sometimes conversations carried by only Armin and Eren, while Mikasa listens intently, but rarely contributes. Rather than a break from the rest of the day, lunch becomes yet another struggling class in which both Eren and Mikasa are both teacher and student. In time they will discover the best ways to express attentiveness to the other, and condition one another to bare the weight of silence, and understand the beauty and tranquility in letting it simply be. They will learn. But for now, they stumble through silence, anticipate and dread these lunchtime meetings.

"Why don't you invite them to sit with us?" Eren says one day, catching her glancing over at Sasha and Connie's table.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"I could do it, if you want.

"No!" she exclaims before she can check herself, "please, please don't do that."

He regards her quietly, studying her face for some betrayal of thought. "All right," he says, and he never brings it up again.

But nevertheless, he meddles. At least, Mikasa thinks he does. What else could it possibly be? Things like this don't happen to her, of all people, of their own accord.

"Have a nice weekend, Mikasa!" Krista calls out to her out of nowhere as Mikasa makes her way out to her car.

Mikasa nearly trips on her own two feet, and she feels her own eyes go wide. Krista, kind enough to exercise patience in her caught off guard moment, smiles kindly at her, her blue ethereal eyes disappearing into crescents as she smiles kindly, angelic swatches of her blond hair brushing against her cheeks. "You too," Mikasa finally manages.

In the safety of her car, Mikasa waits for her hands to stop shaking and for the red to fade from her face before driving home.

**. . . . .**

"I thought I asked you not to say anything," Mikasa says, letting herself in as soon as Eren opens the door.

"What? What are you talking about?"

One hand to her temple, she presses the fingertips of the other to her lips, replaying that split second scene that occurred earlier in the parking lot with Krista over, and over, and over. She analyzes every detail for a hidden message in the flip of her hair, or the tilt of her head, perhaps in the way she inflected each word. Had it been a veiled invitation? No, certainly not. Of all things, that was perhaps the last intention. A random, spontaneous greetings? Or perhaps she'd been mocking her and her very apparent lack of plans for this weekend?

When her mind settles from its reeling, Mikasa will register the eccentricity of her surroundings: the dozens upon dozens of stacks of books right up against the wall, the varied rugs that cover the floor,and archipelago of mats and carpets that span the entire apartment. But until then, she remains occupied by her mind's over analysis of a two sentence exchange.

"What's going on?" Eren asks. He stands across the room from her, eyes wide as he regards her with surprise and slight alarm.

"You talked to Krista about lunch when I asked you not to," Mikasa says, and instantly she shrinks into herself. The thought sounds so much more silly out loud.

"Ah," Eren replies, "I did talk to her, but I only mentioned you in passing. I didn't say anything to her about lunch."

"Oh," Mikasa says. She wraps her arms around herself, fixing her gaze on the picture hanging from the wall: a view overlooking the ocean shore meeting the sand, waves crashing against the rocks.

"She asked how I was adjusting to the new job and all—if I was settling in all right," Eren explains, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "I told her that I was doing all right: that Armin was an old friend of mine, that I'd been talking to you."

Mikasa nods. Inclining her chin, she hopes he can't read the embarrassment that's stitched itself to her limbs. "I'm sorry for barging in on you," she says as she contemplates the best way to make her exit.

"No worries," he says. "I actually just finished brewing a pot of tea if you'd like to stay for a cup."

The words "no thank you" already begin to form on her lips—an automatic response, a pre programmed setting. There is safety in patterns, in known outcomes and predictability, an easiness in it all. But there's that voice in the back of her mind, the one that aches, and longs, always wanting more. It coaxes, gently, gently, dares her to take a chance for the very first time in a very long time. And without ever understanding how or why, Mikasa finds herself nodding her head.

Eren beams. "Great," he says, and with a wave of his hand, motions for her to follow him into the kitchen.

The living room was a fitting prelude to the kitchen and dining room. Books and loose papers occupy counter space and chair seats, a stack of records tower precariously next to a record player, and essays serve as coasters for old mugs.

They sit across from one another, steaming cups of tea in both their hands, just like at lunch, but also not like lunch at all. Save for the radio playing in the next room over, there's no cushioning hum of other conversations and voices ever present in the staff lunchroom, no passing period bell to spare them from their own awkwardness. Here, in this foreign intimacy, they must face one another in all their silence, in each expression, unobstructed, uninterrupted.

They start as they normally do: exchanging stories about their day, about humorous things their students said or did, reminiscing over their own high school readings of _Lord of the Flies_, the book his honors freshmen class just completed, deviating on a tangent about how he made the switch from coffee to tea only a few months ago.

"I'm not trying to force you into anything," Eren says following a lull in the conversation and an intermittent sip from his tea, "but if you ever wanted to start talking to Krista, I'm sure you could. She's really nice."

"I know. But," Mikasa hesitates, "I'm not good at that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?"

She stares at the surface of her tea, the flecks of ground leaves settled at the bottom. "Making friends."

The silence that succeeds hangs heavy in the air, a soft melody from the radio in the next room over underlies it all, lyrics indistinct. Regret begins to settle in, a nagging "I told you so" eating away at her diminishing confidence. This is what comes from far-fetched chances. And then he speaks: "Well," his words come slow and cautious, as if each one is its own individual secret, "you've got me."

Mikasa can't help it—her eyes snap up, taken aback by his forwardness, and immediately, he shrinks into the back of his chair, face flushing bright red, chin dipping down. Tripping over his own words, he stutters and stammers, furiously stirring at his tea with his spoon. "I mean, only if you feel the same way. Friendship's sort of a two way thing. I didn't mean to imply...you're not obligated to..."

Reaching across the table, Mikasa hesitates before placing her hand on Eren's to still his trembling fingertips. She can't help but wonder if he can feel her heart beating in her touch. "You've got me, too," she says.

They share a small smile, and for the first time, the silence that follows doesn't suffocate, doesn't stifle, doesn't fill either of them with crippling insecurity at their own deficiency, but sits content: at peace and warm.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I was so surprised to get so many requests for **_**With You, I Am Home**_**. I'll be closing requests until further notice. Thanks for all the creative ideas.**

**And thanks for being so patient with waiting for these chapters. Track takes away a lot of my precious writing time, and I write about the same way I run a 32k—very slowly, very sweaty, usually incredibly dizzy and lightheaded by the end of it all. **

**This is what I consider to be the end of the first act—there's plenty of conflict to come.**

* * *

><p><strong>4. A STUDY IN ANATOMY: LUNCH CONVERSATIONS AND POST-DRINKS<strong>

They carpool now—he takes the Wednesdays and Thursdays, she takes Mondays and Tuesdays, and the Fridays they split—at his suggestion. He still struggles with that nasty tendency of his to run late, usually stumbling out of the apartment right at seven, hair uncombed, shoes half on, and still struggling into a sweater, Mikasa already waiting expectantly outside the door.

"Sorry about that," he says as they hop in the car five minutes late one Thursday morning.

"It's all right," she says, rifling through her bag.

"If it causes too much trouble, we don't have to do this anymore. I'd understand."

"Really," she replies, "it's fine. It's nice to hear someone other than the radio talk through my mornings."

They run into Armin in the parking lot, and the three greet each other accordingly

"Here," he says, handing Eren a wrapped parcel, "my grandpa told me to give you this."

"Thanks," Eren replies. "How is the old man? I've been meaning to stop by."

"Doing well. Mobility's probably his biggest challenge right now. I feel bad, leaving him alone all day. Of course, he says he doesn't mind."

Eren nods. "That sounds like the old man," he turns to Mikasa, who walks in silence on his other side, in conscious attempt to include her in the conversation: "I lived with Armin and his grandfather for a few years in high school," he says, holding open the door for both Mikasa and Armin to pass through.

She lifts her head towards him in silent thanks before glancing at the watch on her wrist. "Perhaps you two can tell me more at lunch," and she parts ways with them, heading to her room up in the science department.

"I'm meeting my first period in the library today," Armin says as the two reach a fork in the hallway. "She's really begun to open up," he adds as he looks back over his shoulder. "I'm glad we're getting to know her."

Eren inwardly agrees.

**. . . . .**

As scheduled, Koen meets up with him during his free period, a silent specter that hangs in the threshold of the doorway to the English office until Eren or another teacher calls him in.

"Shakespeare's tough," Eren explains, expanding on his introduction of the new text, _Romeo and Juliet_, from today, "the old English doesn't do us any comprehension favors as readers. That's the "fun" of it, I guess. In a way, we're technically reading a different language."

Koen purses his lips, his entire body rocking forward with the nod of his head.

"Anyways," Eren continues, pushing forward an outline from today's presentation on Shakespeare and a fill-in-the-blank worksheet for Act I Scene I, "just take it slow. You don't have to get through the first scene tonight, but just try to get through line one hundred fifty-eight. The worksheet will help you guide your reading."

"Okay," Koen replies.

"Why don't you go ahead and get started over here. I'll just be at my desk if you need any help. Oh, one more thing: the nice thing about this edition is that it gives a summary of the scene before the start. Refer back to that to check your understanding. And don't be afraid of the footnotes."

Eren returns to his desk not too far away, watching out of the corner of his eye as Koen stares at the book before him, tapping its edges on the table and spurring the pages against his thumb. Koen hangs his head and sighs before gritting his teeth and cracking the book open.

Things have improved. Not by much, but improvement is still improvement no matter how small. He's changed the seating arrangement: separating the chatty group in the back, and moving Koen up to the front where he can inconspicuously remind him to return focus with a gentle tap to the desk, providing him with notes that outline presentations and worksheets to guide comprehension, allowing extra time on assignments. All of it's _helping_—he seems to retain more information, and doesn't get distracted as often in class, but it's not enough. Not enough for his class alone, and certainly not enough for the rest of Koen's classes. Eren knows that.

The conference is next Friday. It'll be him, Ms. Petra Ral, Mrs. Klaus, and Koen. His palms sweat just thinking about it. As his first parent-teacher conference, this will be his first time on the other side of the desk, first time as the villain, first time as the asshole educator whose words will be misconstrued as malicious and condescending. The parents will be sure to hate him after this. Koen sure seems to.

The clock hits the halfway point for the period, and after reviewing what Koen has completed, clarifying some points, pointing out a few details—Eren spots a smirk when he mentions how Shakespeare was notorious for slipping in innuendos left and right-and commending him on his effort and success, dismisses him.

He experiences a twinge of hurt when Koen doesn't return his goodbye, but he reminds himself that he was, in many ways, the same with this sort of thing—worse, even. He resented extra help and extra accommodations, ignored outstretched hands, misinterpreted good intentions for pity or mockery, and misplaced his own insecurity onto his educators, told himself they thought him stupid and unteachable. How shocking—and a touch amusing—to find himself on the receiving end.

"Eren?" a voice rouses him from his thoughts, and he turns to face Krista, her small frame peeking into the English Department.

"What's up?" he asks, slightly surprised to see her.

"The copier down in the Music Department broke on us," she says, waving a sheet of paper, "you all won't mind if I borrow yours, will you?"

"Go right ahead."

She thanks him with that saintly smile of hers when she finishes making her copies. It's the sort of smile perpetually accompanied by its own chorus of angels. "No, you're not crazy," Armin once assured him when he asked, "it happens to me too. It's _weird_."

"I hope I'm not being too forward when I say this " Krista adds as she begins to leave, she twirls a piece of hair on a finger, "but I noticed that you and Armin often sit alone. If you'd like to join us at lunch today, our table has more than enough seats."

Eren looks up from the papers on his desk. He scratches his nose and clears his nose, hoping that he comes off more composed than he actually feels: "Yeah, sure. That's—thank you."

"I'm sorry we never invited you to sit with us earlier. That was thoughtlessness on our part."

"It's fine. No harm done."

Krista smiles again: "Oh," she turns back, "and make sure you bring Mikasa," and then she's gone.

He and Mikasa—they have an unspoken pact. Conceived on the day she finally took him up on his offer for tea, they may not have known each other for long, may not have gotten off on the best of starts, but they both desire a sense of something more—admittance into the realm of their peers, a feeling of belonging among others—and they're going to achieve it with the help of one another. So when he tells her about their new lunch arrangements in the break room, he's taken aback by her response.

"I don't know," Mikasa says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Come on, it'll be a good experience."

Lost in thought, it's as if she doesn't even hear him. Arms around herself, she retreats into herself. "I have to meet with a student today anyways," she finally says.

"Maybe tomorrow then?"

"Maybe," she replies.

The bell rings for the next period, and they part ways.

**. . . . .**

Not wanting to appear rude, he follows through regardless of being unaccompanied, and they more than understand when he explains at lunch.

"Why are you apologizing?" Ymir snears out, each word annunciated in a way that shoves him towards intimidated regret, "Do you really think it some unique circumstance?"

"Don't mind her," Krista chimes in.

"It would be best to be wary," Ymir grins a wolfish grin.

Krista's eyes disappear with her smile as she gently pats Ymir's arm, "She means that we all usually only stay for one half, and then meet with students the other half."

"Oi, who said you could put words in my mouth?"

"Ymir, you're going to scare him off!"

"Consider it a test of his courage,"

"Ymir!"

Unsure of what to make of the scene, Eren averts his eyes to his potatoes, when a foreign spoon inches its way onto his plate.

"Sasha!" Connie's voice rings out.

"What! I didn't do it!"

"You don't know him well enough to do that!"

"He wasn't eating his food! He's a _waster_."

"Sasha, I swear to _god_."

"It's all right," Eren interjects, "you can have them. I'm not that hungry."

He thinks he spots tears brimming in the corner of Sasha's eyes as she slides his plate over: "_Thank you,_" she whispers, and in the background Connie shakes his head solemnly.

"You don't understand what you've just done."

He's right. He doesn't.

Rather than contribute to the multiple conversations surrounding him, Eren instead let's himself soak in the table dynamic—he hasn't sat at a table with this many people since high school. Apparently, adults don't differ all that much from adolescents in their lunchtime banter—though perhaps that's because they're all really still in high school—side conversations dominate for the most part, occasionally overlapping, laughter and bickering erupt one right after the other, sometimes simultaneously, and when the entire table engages in group discussions, it's a struggle of volumes, a jumble of words, back and forth, back and forth, a refreshing sort of exhausting.

And when his peers leave for the halfway point, a mess of goodbyes flying at him amidst chattering and more bickering, he's left with the only other occupant of the table, the only one he hasn't heard speak yet.

"Annie Leonhardt, right?" he asks her.

The girl rolls her gaze to him, cold blue eyes piercing him from behind blonde bangs. "Yes," she says.

"So I take it you're not meeting with a student this half?"

She rises, taking her garbage and collecting the rest of her things. "No," she says without inflection before leaving Eren at the table alone.

He decides it best to head back up to the English Department in hopes of spending the rest of his lonely lunch productively, and takes a detour to the science wing. His steps seem to fall faster and faster as he nears the room, a detail he vaguely registers as odd, but an instinct he doesn't fight; he takes the stairs by twos, flies around blind corners, until finally, he peers into her classroom door.

The room rather dark, quiet and undisturbed, sunlight peeks through the gaps in the closed blinds. Squinting through the glass and through the dim, he spots her at one of the lab tables, sandwich held in both hands as she eats alone.

Eren raises a fist to knock, but stops short of the doorframe. She chose to eat alone in her room today for a reason. Suddenly, guilt settles in the pit of Eren's stomach, and as he retreats, he can't help but feel as if he's somehow at fault.

"Missed you at lunch today," he says later in the car.

"I had a student that needed the period to make up an exam. You know how it is," she stares out the passenger window, lets the curtain of her hair obscure her face.

"Yeah. Of course. It's no problem."

They drive the rest of the way home in silence.

**. . . . .**

When he throws his book bag on the floor, he starts at the unprecedented _thump_ of something rather hard against the floor, the corner of something wrapped in parchment sticks out of his bag.

Tearing through the paper, a tattered and faded copy of _The Gray's Anatomy_ lies beneath. Puzzled, Eren searches the wrappings for a note, any sort of explanation that the old man might've attached for him. Next, he checks the front cover, and stops there.

Scrawled in near print he hasn't seen in close to fifteen years is his father's signature, _Grisha Yeager_, scrawled at the top corner of the page. His thumb traces the lines, follows every rise and fall of the letters, feels as if he's reliving the very moment his father took a pen to the surface: watches his fingers gripping too tight around his utensil, pressing down forcefully as his wrist forms the figures in aggressive passivity, adding his signature a tedious formality that delays him from the useful contents that lie beyond the cover.

And then Eren flies through the pages, passes chapter and diagram, glances only briefly at the illustrations, the various systems drawn out, eyes instead intent on the notes that mark the margins, his father's writing filling the blank spaces, oftentimes illegible, or too muddled to discern without focused examination. Days later on, at night when his father's lost voice calls to him from the pages, he will read through each annotation in attempt to piece together this riddle left behind, his inheritance, attempting to untangle the mess of medical jargon and additional anatomical notes, and arrange it into some sort of message, decipher his father's code. But for now, he scrambles to his cell phone, furiously scrolling through his contacts and pressing the call button with such force, he thinks he may crack the screen.

"Eren?" Armin's voice answers on the fifth ring.

"Hey, is your grandpa there?"

"He actually just went to bed. Want me to wake him for you?"

Eren paces back and forth around his bedroom, _The Gray's Anatomy _in hand. He taps his fingers along the spine. "No, no that's all right," he says. "Actually, this weekend—do you mind if I stop by for a visit?"

"Not at all. He'll be so excited to hear that you're coming."

"Thanks. See you tomorrow?"

"I'll see you tomorrow. And Eren?" Armin asks, "Is everything all right?"

Cold sweat sits on the back of his neck, and his head pounds with an incessant buzzing. "Yeah. Everything's fine," he says. "Thanks again. And tell the old man I said hello."

"I will. Goodbye, Eren."

"Bye."

He lays face up on his bed a long while after that. He should be eating dinner, or grading papers, or organizing lesson plans, but his stomach churns and his head aches; there's no way he can keep anything down, no way he could do anything intelligible with his head buzzing like this, and so he steps outside and prays the night air will remedy his ailments.

A late-autumn breeze sends him shivering, winter's prelude biting at his neck and ears. For a moment, he considers running back inside for his coat-for even the moon, still used to summer heat, deems the night too unbearable, and hides her face in the cloak of the night—but decides against it. The cold, at least for now, calms his racing mind and churning stomach, and with each step and each breath he returns to himself, the whispers that fill his room—that seep from the book shoved underneath his bed-far, far away.

Walking the block, beneath the flickering streetlights, the night bites its tongue, eager for someone else to fill the void. No cars travel the street, no owl calls from a treetop roost, only his shoes against the pavement, each step a gentle tap, breaks apart this lock-and-key-lip night.

He keeps his mind on a tether, let's it wander but never stray, he resists this persistent beast, desperate for quiet since total silence always evades him. He doesn't think about the day his father left, doesn't think about his mother's funeral, doesn't think about the jagged pieces of puzzle scattered round him, how it keeps him up at night, how he sleeps less and less, he doesn't think about how his thoughts are beginning to eat him up alive.

Finished no thinking about anything, and finished circling the block, all the details of his walk distant and unrecallable, looking across the drive at the apartment building on the walkway that overlooks a view of the parking lot, he spots a lone figure leaning against the railing, a mere silhouette in the night.

"You're up late," Eren says, taking the last few steps on to the landing.

"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," Mikasa replies. She turns to face him, and when he draws closer, he can pick out the smallest of smiles. Eren takes the spot on the railing next to her, and the pair stares out into nothingness together.

"I couldn't sleep," he says after a long. "Had to clear my head."

"And has it cleared?" she asks.

Eren shakes his head. He shivers despite the absence of the wind. "My mind hasn't been clear in a long time." From the corner of his eye he catches her face turn towards him, the moon of her features dimly lit in the residual lights on the street and in the lot. He becomes keenly aware of her figure not a foot away from his.

"Will you be all right?"

"I'll be all right," he says, " I always am. It's just inconvenient, keeping me up late," and then he groans, pinching the bridge of his nose, "We have school tomorrow."

Mikasa exhales, and Eren almost mistakes it for the whisper of the wind, its docility and softness just barely distinctive from the darkness's sigh rather than the breath of her lungs. He finds himself stretching towards it: doesn't recoil, doesn't huddle into his shirt, but longs for the sound, ears aching to hear it again.

But as he reaches out, she shrinks back, her own arms drawing tight around her, twin constricting serpents.

"Listen...Eren," she says, "today at lunch, I...I didn't-"

"It's all right," he cuts her off, spares her the confession. Intently, he looks her straight in the eyes, daring her not to look away. "It's all right."

Her throat drops and rises as she swallows, the hint of tears glinting at the corner of her eyes. "It's hard," her voice wavers, "learning new things, unlearning old ways...God, there's so much to unlearn."

"We don't have to sit with them if you don't want to," Eren replies. "We can go back to the way things were before."

"No. No, I want to _try_. I _have _to at least do that," she turns to face him. "Eren—tomorrow—is it all right if…"

"Of course. Of course it is."

For a few moments longer, they observe the passing night in each other's silent company: the chatter of the rustling leaves, the lone car that passes through their street, there and then gone, somewhere in the distance, a siren sounds.

The clock hits thirty past one when they decide to part ways; they exchange drowsy goodbyes and fatigued waves.

"Eren?" Mikasa calls out at the last minute.

He looks back over his shoulder. "Yeah?"

"I know it doesn't seem like it," she holds her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes downcast, "but I'm trying."

Eren looks at her hard. "I know. I know you are," he says, and he means it.

He returns to his room. And, his mind quiet, sleep descends upon him as soon his head hits the pillow.

**. . . . .**

Armin saves them seats on either side of him, a feat harder than you'd think with so many people crammed at one table. Immediately, the table breaks out into their usual chatter, most of it directed at their new guests—particularly at Mikasa. Both Krista and Sasha engage in separate conversations with her, and Eren spots that telltale sign in her posture—the one where she grows rigidly straight, expression so stoic it almost breeds the illusion of icy contempt. But when he locks eyes with her, giving her just the slightest of nods of the head, she relaxes her shoulders and loosens her clenched jaw.

Lunch goes well. The three of them partake in the discussion, interjecting here and there, even eliciting the occasional laugh from one of their peers. Eren finds himself intermittently glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, relieved to find her more relaxed, responsive to the conversation, engaged—though silently—in the table's ongoings. Something she says aside, with only a glint in her eyes, sends Sasha into distressed groaning and Connie into a fit of laughter; and though a complete outsider to that specific discourse, Eren finds himself suppressing a grin nonetheless.

Lunch goes so well, that when they're invited out to drinks this evening, _Mikasa_ accepts first out of the three of them.

"I've nothing going on tonight," she says, looking directly at Eren and Armin as she answers.

In a moment of disbelief, Eren's voice fails him.

"We'll be there," Armin says, giving Eren an inquisitive poke in the side.

**. . . . .**

From the passenger's side he catches glimpses of her in the back through his spinning vision, her flower blouse beneath her cardigan undone three buttons down, and he wonders when that happened, for she hadn't started out three buttons short at the beginning of the evening.

Wracking his brain for the moment, he sifts through the scenes of the night in search, recalling Connie and Sasha's rather rowdy game of pool, earning looks of disdain from the other patrons, Annie absent from the outing altogether, Ymir, completely sober, smirking while whispering something into the ear of a giggling Krista, undone by a single shot of Fireball, while the three of them—him, Armin, and Mikasa-sat just down the bar. Perhaps it happened after his third or fourth beer. Or maybe after the shot? Or had the shot come before that? Fuck.

They reach the apartment building before he ever figures it out. They fumble out as they exit the car, Eren showering Armin in compliments and Mikasa in thanks.

"Will you two be all right?" Armin leans out his window, eyebrows knit together.

"It's a glass of water and then straight to bed," Eren gives him a two-finger salute. "See ya later this weekend."

"Goodnight," Mikasa adds.

They watch as Armin drives away, taillights disappearing from view, before heading up to their building.

He watches in amusement as she sways from foot to foot as they walk to their apartments, as if there's a song playing in her head that she just can't stop herself from dancing to, her cheeks tinted with the heat from her last glass of wine. Her cardigan slides partially down her shoulder, revealing the ridge of her collarbone. He can't help but wonder what it tastes like.

"What're you smiling at?" she asks, looking at him curiously.

"Nothing," Eren lies, and he feels his smile split wider.

Frowning, an accusing brow raised, with her thumb, she brushes his bottom lip. "Than what's this?"

"You're drunk."

"You are too."

They stand toe to toe, her eyes, though her expression remains as composed as ever, shine like pieces of the night sky, and the moon of her face stares up at his fully, unashamed, unwavering. "Goodnight," she whispers. And his breath hitches in his throat.

Later, when he looks back on this moment, he will not be able to recall who leaned in first-if it had been him or her—but Eren Yeager finds himself with his lips on hers, kissing her hard, her fingers curling round the red fabric of his scarf as he presses all of him into her.

They part for a moment—only just a moment—eyes searching the other, half in shock of what they've just done, the other half for the look to indicate that this, right here, right now, is what the other wants, too. And then they rush together once again, second kiss more fevered, more hungry than the first, so incredibly eager to taste, and touch, and feel, whatever _this_ is that they feel between them.

Still wrapped in her, Eren fumbles with the lock and key, the simple task made all the more difficult with too many beers to count sloshing in his stomach, and her hands trailing lower, lower, grasping at the hem of his shirt, and, the door relenting with a clumsy shove, the pair usher inside.


	5. Chapter 5

**Warnings: sexual content**

**A/N: *twiddles thumbs guiltily* **

** P.S. Can you catch the pun I slipped in?**

* * *

><p><strong>5. FORECAST: STEAMING HOT AND UP ALL NIGHT<strong>

When her back collides with the wall, his hands so warm against her skin as they lift her face to his, back arching up to meet him, she vaguely registers that she has absolutely no idea what she's doing. She's never done this before. Never been kissed quite so passionately, never kissed back, never been so spontaneous. It's the wine. What else could it be? And besides—being spontaneous, seizing opportunities, this putting herself out there—this _is_ what she wanted, isn't it?

Regardless, she thought she knew herself better than this, thought her desires restricted to platonic company, a companion on the way to and from school, didn't think she craved hot breath and roving hands, burning fire skin that traps her against the wall; she thought herself reserved, controlled, disclosing everything at her own precise discretion, but when his groin rocks into her hips, a gasp, staccato and sudden, escapes from her lips, and _god_ she wants this so bad.

Catching her breath, lip trapped between her teeth, her eyes roll back and her brow furrows as his lips trail lower to taste the skin of her neck, and his hips press achingly into hers, filling her mind with visions of what's to come. And dizzy on the mix of him and the red wine, she fumbles, eagerly trying to tug his shirt over his head as he tries to wheel backwards, both of them simultaneously succeeding as they tumble on to the couch. She straddles his waist, and discards his scarf and shirt off to the side, and, eyes finding the taut definition of his chest and abdomen, rippling lean muscle that rises and falls with each heaving breath, the v-outline that dives beneath the hem of his boxers, she runs a single finger down the soft line of hair that leads down his center, flicking her gaze up to catch the shudder that runs through him, the pink that deepens on his cheeks, when she pulls the fabric down from his waist, leaving him bare.

He doesn't let her revel for long: drags the cardigan from her shoulders, undoes the buttons of her flower blouse one by one and sends it fluttering to the floor, kissing each new unveiled section of skin.

_I'm about to fuck the guy next door. _The thought passes through her mind like a bird flying past a window: there and then gone, only just registering on the conscious level. She can't even connect the dots from point A to B. She was just at the bar, sipping from her glass, giggling at something someone said, and now she's about to fuck the guy next door. She's letting her coworker run his tongue over her breasts. She's helping her only friend undo her belt, letting his hand slip beneath her underwear and moaning at his touch. Can they even really call themselves friends after this?

But it's so damn hard—impossible—to think of the future repercussions, to think of anything but his length, stiff and hard, pressing against the inside of her thigh, his teeth at the sweep of her neck, and then his lips on hers again. And as he hoists her up in his arms, her legs instinctively wrapping around his waist as he carries her into the bedroom, Mikasa supposes that it will all make sense in the morning.

He lays her out across his unmade sheets, shoves a couple of t-shirts and books out of the way before, still kissing her—his breath stale with beer and hers, she assumes, with wine—spreads her thighs with the warm palm of his hand, slipping in a finger, and then another, into her aching core.

A moan tears through her, and her hands fly up to cover her mouth. The steady rhythm he adopts drives her breathless and hazy towards that edge, and even as she begins to sober up from the earlier portion of a night, plunging her immediately back into a state of dizzying ecstasy. This foreign ground, uncharted territory, bears fruit she has never tasted until now, sweet on her tongue and overwhelming, her hips flexing, arching up towards him at his rhythm of his fingers draws from her sigh and groan.

And, her breath ragged, her hand slips down to caress his length, the nagging insecurity in the back of her mind about her sexual incompetence diminishing a great deal at the jolt of his hips, but then he pulls away, his fingers leaving her body aching in unfulfillment; he rises over her on hands and knees.

"D'you—?" he inquires, his figure looming above her. His eyes, emerald green and bright even in the dark, travel over her, and she feels his gaze everywhere, the same as if it were his hands that saw for him: they touch her kiss-swollen lips, the sweep of her neck to her clavicle, rising and falling with each breath, her breasts—petite yet full—pebbled nipples hard and raised, belly that falls into her hips, the milky skin of her thighs and what lies between them, longing for his touch, desperate for him.

"I want you," Mikasa breathes, voice strained, and she affirms her confirmation, bucking her hips up against his.

The anticipation grows as she spreads herself for him, as she watches him position himself at her core. She closes her eyes, and can't help but hold her breath, throwing her head back in a silent moan and he pushes into her little by little, filling her completely. And then they begin to move.

He sets the pace, rocks with her, against her, his body burning hot at the touch, and her hips rise and fall to meet his every thrust, the both of them hurried and eager to glean whatever pleasure they can from the body of the other. All concept of time evades her. One moment each stroke leaves and enters her agonizingly measured and paced, and the next he moves with indulging abandon, with thrusts she cannot match, only receive as she finds purchase in the broadness of his shoulders. And when she comes, hips jerking, pulling him deeper, closer, writhing beneath him as he follows her, emptying himself into her with three final, punctuated thrusts, she cries out. The sound of her voice resonates in the night.

In the wake come their shuddering sighs, their heavy and steadying breaths. All the alcohol is purged from her body, and yet what she feels is far from what she'd refer to as sobriety.

She feels him leave her, feels his fingers trail down her stomach, and reach between her thighs, pressing into her; sensitive, she whimpers.

"Better be quiet," Eren mumbles into her skin before pressing a deep kiss to her mouth, "the girl next door set a bag of shit on fire last time I made noise past eleven,"

Mikasa retaliates with a tug to his lower lip. And her hands reach down to find him again.

**. . . . .**

When Mikasa Ackerman wakes the next morning, she doesn't recognize the ceiling glaring down at her, doesn't recognize the linen that she lays out on, and at first she can't figure out the reason for her state of undress, but then she turns, facing whatever lays on the other side. Oh. Yeah.

Fuck.

On the opposite side of the bed, curled up all the way to the edge leaving as much space as allowed between them—it seems as if even in their tipsy, post-coital bliss they both knew, they always knew—he sleeps turned away from her, the blankets resting at his hips; his messied—more messied than usual—hair sticks out every which way, and the muscles in his shoulders and back light something residual in the pit of her stomach, the remaining embers from last night's fire that glow at the simple caress of a breath, and she quickly pushes it away.

Instantly, any morning drowsiness vanishes leaving only abrupt, unwelcome clarity. Later, when urgency and adrenaline don't dominate her thoughts, when she's safe in the privacy of her own room, she'll feel the nagging soreness in her hips, her thighs, her back; and when she soaks in the bath, washing away a night of blind passion and red wine, she'll have the leisure for regret and embarrassment, find they don't wash off as readily as his scent from her skin. But for now, escape is her immediate concern; she slips out of bed soundlessly, and perhaps if she leaves the sheets, the room, his side, undisturbed, without a trace, it'll be as if the night before never existed. It will reside only in dreams.

Her floral blouse and panties are no where to be seen—not strewn across his bedroom floor, not by the door where she left them—but she finds the rest of her things as well as two condom wrappers on the bedside table (_Two_? They did it _twice_?) and she registers the pair with hurried, dull relief.

Half dressed—only in her bra and cardigan, which, thank god, covers her ass—she scours the rest of the apartment for the rest of her belongings when an alarm sounds. Its ringing shatters the silent, building tension of the morning, and, spooked by the sound of rustling of sheets, a stretching exhale from the room over, Mikasa rushes out of the apartment, panties and floral blouse abandoned.


End file.
